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Roddy Lumsden -
Roddy Lumsden is Dead.

With his exuberant and otherworldly poems, Roddy Lumsden has quickly established himself among Britain's leading younger poets. In this his third book, the filmic tour de force of the title sequence, by turns comic, tragic and fantastic, follows the twists in a maze of madness, love and self-deception, from Edinburgh to Stoke Newington via the Philippines.

The collection's second half brings together new work with some favourite pieces which show why Lumsden is such a popular reader on both the literary and performance circuits.

"In poem after poem, one is aware that no-one, not even Lumsden himself, has written anything like this before... (He is) one of the very few poets whom one can plausibly compare with Auden... (He) has a temperamental affinity with Auden in that he understands instinctively that writing a poem is, first and foremost, a performance..."
Laurie Smith, Magma"

My Death

A woman's silver shoe remains sole up
beneath a broken chair. A china cup

with half an inch of something sour and green.
A thin, white line divides the TV screen.

Bouts of thunder shift the world all day.
A sweet voice says, hold tight, it's time to pay.

Millions quietly talk of their diseases.
The black-hubbed wind does as it pleases.

Roddy Lumsden
Roddy Lumsden is Dead.
Wrecking Ball Press
ISBN 1-903110-08-4